UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00039136844 


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Form  No.  471 


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University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://www.archive.org/details/addressofrevdrbaOOsear 


ti 


ADDEESS 


OP 


REl  1.  BARIS  SEiRS,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 


ON 


^HE  pBJECTS  AND  ADVANTAGES 


OF 


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M^  c^  c^  cfa  c^  c^ 


DUEHAM,  N.  C: 

W.  T.  BLACKWELL  &  CO.'S  STEAM  PRINTING  HOUSE, 

1878. 


POPULAR  EDUCATION. 

Tlifi  Oicts  ii  Atotaps  of  Nomal  Scliools. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  NOETH  CAROLINA, ) 

Chapel  Hill,  N.  C,  July  25tli,  1878.      ) 

To  THE  Members  of  the  Unr^ersity  Nok>ial  School  of  1878  : 

The  following  letter  and  address  of  the  Rev.  Bariias  Sears,  D. 
D.,  LL.  D.,  the  distinguished  Agent  of  the  Peabody  Fund,  reached 
me  so  late  that  I  could  not  comply  with  his  suggestion  to  "read 
one  or  two  brief  extracts  to  the  School."  There  is  no  one  in  the 
United  States  who  has  greater  experience  or  authority  in  matters 
relating  to  education  than  Dr.  Sears.  No  one  is  more  worthy  to 
be  listened  to  with  respect  and  deference  by  the  teachers  of  the 
land.  This  address  so  ably  sets  forth  the  imj)ortance  of  education 
and  the  impossibility  of  promoting  it  wdthout  previously  training 
the  teachers,  that  the  whole  should  be  carefully  read  and  thor- 
oughly digested  by  you  dU.  I  therefore  take  pleasure  in  forward- 
ing to  each  of  you  a  copy,  hoping  that  its  perusal  will  in  some 
measure  compensate  for  the  disappointment  you  felt  in  not  hear- 
ing it  spoken  by  its  eminent  author. 

Very  respectfully, 

KEMP  P.  BATTLE, 
President  University  of  N.  C. 


Staunton,  Va.,  July  22d,  1878. 
President  Kemp  P.  Battle,  LL.  D.: 

My  Dear  Sir  :  At  this  late  hour,  I  find  that,  owing  to  sickness  in 
my  family,  I  cannot  fulfil  my  engagement  to  deliver  an  address  at 
the  close  of  your  Normal  School.  The  best  I  can  do  is  to  send 
you  the  address  I  have  prepared,  the  substance  of  which  I  had 
already  dehvered  at  the  Normal  College  at  Nash^oUe.  Perhaps 
you  may  have  a  few  spare  moments  when  you  can  read  one  or  two 
brief  extracts  to  the  School.  At  any  rate,  you  can  see  what  I  had 
intended  to  do.  Yours  very  sincerelv, 

B.  SEARS. 


THE    ADDRESS. 

In  all  great  public  interests,  there  is  a  simple  underhing  prin- 
ciple from  which  the  whole  may  be  developed.  That  principle  in 
regard  to  jiublic  schools  may -be  stated  thus:  Man  was  made  for 
education  as  much  as  the  earth  was  for  cultivation.  Both  the  ra- 
tional and  the  material  world  lose  most  of  their  value  when  neglec- 
ted. Not  long  ago  I  passed,  on  my  way  to  Texas,  through  the 
cultivated  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois.  I  then  passed 
through  the  rich  but  uncultivated  Indian  Territory.  The  contrast 
was  painful.  The  bounties  of  natm-e  seemed  to  be  wasted  for  the 
Avant  of  the  hand  of  industry.  I  have  seen  a  similar  contrast  be- 
tween a  cultivated  and  uncultivated  peoj)le.  Can  it  be  that  in  one 
case  it  is  the  same  fertile  earth,  and  in  the  other  the  same  race  of 
rational  beings  ?  Look  at  Britain  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Julius  Cte- 
sar,  and  at  England  as  it  is  to-day,  and  teU  me  what  has  made  the 
difference?  It  is  culture.  Compare  the  Geimany  of  Tacitus  with 
the  Prussia  of  the  present  day,  and  you  will  see  the  same  contrast. 
What  has  China,  India,  Mongoha  and  Central  Afi-ica,  during  so 
many  ages,  done  for  the  i:)rogress  of  mankind?  Their  history,  like 
that  of  the  native  tribes  of  America,  is  mostly  worthless  because 
it  lacks  the  essential  element  of  a  progressive  civilization. 

The  difference  between  a  totally  uneducated  and  a  highly  educa- 
ted man  or  peo2:)le  is  as  great  as  between  an  ant  and  an  elephant. 
Look  at  a  boor  of  Siberia,  and  then  turn  your  thoughts  to  a  Hum- 
boldt, and  you  would  think  you  had  crossed  a  continent  in  the 
animal  kingdom.  I  agree  with  Huxley  when  he  says  that  one  such 
man  as  Arkwright  or  Watt  is,  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  worth 
£200,000  to  England  alone.  There  is  probably  vastly  more  of  un- 
developed resources  in  the  capacities  of  man,  than  in  the  unseen 
mineral  wealth  of  the  world.  If  both  individual  man  and  nations 
are  worth  to  the  world  one  hundred  times  more  when  highly  cul- 
tivated, as  England  and  Prussia  are  now,  than  when  sunken  in  the 
ignorance  of  barbarism,  education  is  a  prime  necessit}'  to  man  as 
it  is  his  peculiar  prerogative.  Education,  then,  should  be  univer- 
sal because  the  nature  and  necessities  of  man  are  universal.  It  is 
the  immense  disparity  between  these  two,  the  want  and  the  supply 
in  the  matter  of  education  which  is  the  cause  of  some  of  our  great- 
est troubles  at  this  very  day.  With  all  the  learning  of  individual 
men,  there  is  among  us  and  around  us  a  frightful  mass  of  ignorant 
and  almost  useless  citizens,  which  the  educated  class  cannot  con- 
trol. If  you  inquire  into  the  cause  of  much  of  our  domestic  un- 
happiness,  you  will  find  it  is  the  want  of  culture  and  refinement. 
The  son  goes  out  at  night  for  pleasure  because  he  finds  so  little  at 
home.  The  daughter  seeks  amusement  abroad  b}'  day  and  by 
night,  for  the  same  reason.  The  husband  goes  to  the  saloon  and 
other  places  of  resort  because  his  wife's  stock  of  entertaining  con- 
versation is  exhausted;  and  she  herself  sits  solitary  at  home  in  the 
wearisome  and  duU  evenings,  because  the  family  finds  more  plea- 
sure elsewhere. 


Now,  if  this  be  the  history  of  many  families  in  every  community, 
how  much  of  intellectual  elevation,  of  high-toned  moral  sentiment 
and  public  spii'it  will  be  found  among  them  ?  "VNTiat  are  their  social 
enjoj'ments — rational  and  imj)roving,  or  low  aud  degrading?  ele- 
vating and  refining  intercourse,  or  the  sensual  pleasures  of  eating 
and  drinking,  and  vulgar  and  commonplace  conversation? 

I  need  not  ask  what  are  the  occupations  of  such  families.  They 
will  be  of  the  plainest  and  coarsest  kind.  The  arts  will  be  of  the 
mdest  sort.  That  skill,  which  in  this  age  is  an  essential  element 
of  prosperity,  will  be  wanting. 

The  sad  story  to  be  told  of  this  class  is  that  individual  life  is 
dull,  monotonous  and  unthinking;  home  life,  coarse,  blunt  and 
uninviting;  social  life,  low  and  unimproving;  civil  life,  jealous, 
selfish  and  cj^uarrelsome;  and  political  life,  narrow-minded,  clan- 
nish and  semi-barbarous.  It  is  as  Boeotia  compared  to  Attica; 
Ireland  compared  to  Scotland;  Spain  to  England  or  Prussia;  Spa- 
nish America  to  the  United  States. 

It  was  once,  in  the  days  of  Rousseau,  fashionable  to  admire  at  a 
distance,  savage  life.  Men  talked  and  wrote  much  about  the  pure 
and  simple  hfe  of  the  children  of  nature.  We  have  since  learned 
that  there  are  more  cannibals  than  saints  among  these  supposed 
innocents.  We  now  hear  a  certain  class  of  politicians  prate  about 
the  \irtue  and  purity  of  an  untaught  rural  population,  as  if  gross 
ignorance  were  the  only  true  basis  of  poHtical  integrity  aud  public 
morality.  If  this  is  not  putting  darkness  for  light  and  light  for 
darkness,  we  do  not  know  what  is.  The  absurdity  is  too  gToss  to 
admit  of  serious  argument.  It  is  brain,  not  argument,  that  is 
wanted. 

And  yet  there  are  men  who  are  indifferent,  and  others  who  are 
ever  hostile  to  the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge  bj'  means  of  pub- 
lic schools.  The  former  know  not  its  value,  because  they  have  not 
yet  learned  what  all  others  have — that  "knowledge  is  power."  Of 
its  elevating  influence,  its  broad  day-light  upon  the  soul,  and  its 
life-giving  energy,  they  are  totally  ignorant.  Though  the  world  is 
full  of  examples,  to  them  the  page  of  history  is  a  blank. 

The  other  class  appear  to  be  more  knowing  than  the  wisest  men, 
and  assume  to  be  public  teachers  and  guides.  They  are  the  apos- 
tles of  ignorance,  as  if  divinely  commissioned  to  keep  the  veil  on 
the  human  mind,  which  others  are  endeavoring  to  remove.  They 
forget  that  truth  aud  the  soul  are  made  for  each  other,  as  much  as 
light  is  made  for  the  eye,  and  the  eye  for  the  light.  They  heed  not 
the  proverbs  of  Solomon,  nor  the  voice  of  the  wise  men  of  one  hun- 
dred generations  in  regard  to  seeking  knowledge.  In  their  view, 
the  man}'  exist  for  the  benefit  of  the  few — the  one  to  do  the  thinlc;- 
ing  of  society,  the  others  to  do  the  work.  Light  is  to  shine  upon 
these  few  favored  sons  of  fortune,  while  thick  darkness  is  to  cover 
the  people. 


There  are  men— I  hope  there  are  none  in  North  CaroHna — who 
if  we  may  believe  them,  are  not  hostile  to  the  pubhc  schools;  they 
only  wish  to  cut  down  unnecessary  expenses.  They  want  cheap 
schools — the  cheaper  the  better.  They  would  graduate  the  pay  of 
teachers  by  the  wages  of  the  day  laborer.  "The  poor,"  they  say, 
"  do  not  need  accomphshed  teachers  or  expensive  schools.  Nothing 
but  the  simplest  elements  of  knowledge  need  be  taught  them. 
They  have  no  claim  for  anything  better.  Many  of  them  are  vicious. 
Let  them  put  their  children  to  work.  The  lower  classes  will  never 
rise.  Why  trouble  ourselves  about  them  ?  Education  is  to  them 
a  doubtful  boon ;  it  often  injures  the  laborer  by  making  him  dis- 
contented. It  is  all  fanaticism  and  false  philanthropv."  They  are 
now  prejDared  to  turn  round  and  say  that  the  public  schools  are 
vulgar ;  that  it  is  no  place  for  the  children  of  good  famihes.  Of 
course,  the  rich  ought  not  to  pay  taxes  for  the  schools  that  do  not 
benefit  them.  These  men  are  not  opposed  to  pvibhc  schools.  Oh, 
no!  They  are  the  friends  of  a  moderate,  economical  system  of 
ediication.  Deliver  vis  from  such  friends.  How  came  such  fos- 
sils to  turn  up  in  this  age  ?  They  are  at  least  three  centuries  be- 
hind the  times.  They  were  born  and  bred  in  Sleepy  Hollow.  The 
wheel  of  time  has  been  turning,  and  will  not  go  back  to  accommo- 
date them.  The  world  has  moved  somewhat  since  such  ideas  were 
entertained.  Feudalism  is  dead  and  buried,  and  not  even  its  ghost 
will  ever  revisit  the  glimpses  of  the  moon.  The  peasant  of  former 
centuries  has  disappeared  ;  the  citizen  has  taken  his  place.  Now, 
we  have  only  to  neglect  this  mass  of  the  peoj^le,  to  suffer  their  off- 
spring to  grow  up  in  ignorance,  and  we  shall  have  as  plentiful  a 
harvest  of  communists  as  France  and  chartists  as  England,  has  ever 
had.  Indeed,  these  untutored,  impoi-ted  citizens,  bm-ied  in  our 
coal  mines  as  deeply  as  they  are  buried  in  ignorance,  are  foremost 
in  all  disturbances.  They  come  mostly  from  the  Old  World.  They 
are  secluded  from  society,  and  breathe  not  the  atmosphere  of  our 
institutions.  They  suffer  from  want,  and  in  their  ignorance  know 
not  the  cause,  and  become  the  enemies  of  the  property-holders. 
Strikers  are  the  natural  outgrowth  of  ignorance.  Education  is  the 
only  remedy.  An  ignorant  populace  can  always  be  led  by  dema- 
gogues. 

Now  which  is  the  wiser,  the  nobler,  to  vulgarize  and  brutalize 
the  lower  classes,  or  to  humanize  and  civilize  them?  That  is  the 
question  for  us  to  settle.  Shall  we  or  shall  we  not  fasten  the  shack- 
les of  ignorance  upon  one-half  or  one-third  of  our  fellow-citizens? 
W^hat  foUy  it  is  in  this  Nineteenth  century  to  repeat  the  blun- 
ders of  preceding  centuries !  It  was  not  the  Hght  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, but  the  darkness  which  preceded  it,  and  which  still  remain- 
ed, that  caused  the  Peasants'  war  in  Germany.  It  was  not  Voltaire 
and  Rousseau  and  their  compeers  that  produced  the  horrors  of  the 
French  Revolution,  but  Louis  XIV  and  XV,  by  sinking  the  people 
to  the  level  of  brutes.  The  wild  beasts  were  only  unchained  by 
new  pohtical  events.     And  we  have  terrible  convulsions  in  store 


for  us,  if  we  do  not  tame  and  humanize  the  fierce  and  ferocious 
elements  of  society  bj^  a  diHgent  and  careful  training  of  a  new 
generation.  We  have  signs  and  tokens  enough  of  approaching 
danger  to  give  us  timely  warning. 

This  crusade  against  public  schools  is  as  unwise  as  it  is  perilous. 
We  live  in  a  scientific  age,  and  cannot  get  out  of  it.  Henceforth 
aU  successful  business  will  be  conducted  on  scientific  principles. 
The  muscles  of  the  hand  and  arm  have  given  Avay  to  machinexy. 
The  ways  of  our  fathers,  which  answered  for  them,  wiU  not  answer 
for  us.  Improvements  have  infinitely  varied  and  multiplied  com- 
petitions. In  Virginia  the  carriage-maker,  the  cabinet-maker,  the 
manufacturer  of  the  implements  of  husbandry  and  of  household 
articles,  find  that  the  material  is  carried  fi-om  our  forests  almost  to 
the  Canada  line,  worked  up  by  steam  or  water  power,  and  return- 
ed and  sold  here  at  lower  rates  than  we  can  manufacture  them. 
Hand  labor  is  of  little  account;  brain  work  has  the  ascendancy 
everywhere.  Even  in  so  simple  a  work  as  that  of  making  boots  and 
shoes,  not  less  than  seventeen  patented  inventions  are  now  used. 
Crimping,  stitching,  sewing,  pegging,  eyeleting,  riveting  are  done 
in  less  time  than  it  would  require  to  describe  the  process. 

One  woman  can  make  the  eyelet-holes  of  1,440  pairs  of  shoes  in 
a  day.  The  consequence  is  that  fewer  hands  are  employed,  al- 
though more  work  is  done.  In  Massachusetts  30,000  fewer  men 
in  the  shoe  business  alone  are  employed  than  there  were  in  1855. 
And  yet  the  manufacture  is  increased  by  $71,000,000  a  year.  In  like 
manner,  the  great  inventions  of  recent  times  have  revolytionized 
nearly  all  branches  of  business.  The  New  York  Tribune,  for  its  30,- 
000  readers,  rolls  ofi"from  its  revolving  cylinder  and  folds  up  twenty- 
foui-  miles  of  printed  matter  for  its  columns  every  day,  and  not  a 
human  hand  touches  the  work,  which  is  aU  done  by  machinery. 
But  the  ignorant  cannot  be  trusted  to  work  tliis  machinery.  The 
people,  or  State,  that  is  determined  to  do  business  in  the  primitive 
way  dooms  itself  to  iiTetrievable  inferiority  and  insignificance. 

Business  is  no  longer  provincial.  Those  who  are  to  prosper  in 
it  must  have  a  wider  outlook  than  was  formerly  necessary.  They 
must  take  vastly  more  into  their  calculations  than  theii*  fathers  did. 
Not  only  is  the  sphere  of  influences  aftecting  them  wider,  but  the 
relations  of  trade  are  more  complicated.  Business  is  in  the  hands 
of  experts,  and  a  novice,  though  honest  and  industrious,  is  sure  to 
be  outdone.  Competition  is  sharper  than  it  was,  and  the  com- 
petitors more  numerous,  and  improved  methods  make  it  harder 
to  keep  up  with  the  times;  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  is 
more  exact;  and  the  study  and  forecast  of  coming  changes  in  the 
state  of  business  have  become  more  common  by  means  of  increased 
knowledge. 

In  these  disastrous  times  our  men  must  go  to  work  with  cleai'er 
heads  as  well  as  braver  hearts.  Those  who  take  most  advantage 
of  the  facilities  furnished  by  science  will  carry  off  the  piizes. 
While  industry  and  economy  will  do  much,  skill  will  do  more. 


The  more  mind  there  is  applied  to  business  the  more  prosperity 
there  will  be. 

General  education,  therefore,  is  the  condition  on  which  the  suc- 
cess of  the  indi^sddual,  the  hajipiness  of  families,  the  peace  of  so- 
ciety and  the  prosperity  of  the  State  depend.  How  is  this  grand 
object  best  to  be  obtained?  Various  methods  have  been  tried  du- 
ring many  centuries  and  in  all  civilized  countries,  and  the  result 
of  these  experiments  is  the  almost  unanimous  opinion  that  not 
only  the  best  but  the  only  wa}^  is  by  a  State  system  of  public 
schools.  All  other  kinds  of  schools,  whatever  their  merits  in  other 
respects,  have  failed  to  accomplish  this  object. 

PART    II. 

As  soon  as  such  a  system  is  established  by  Ikw,  and  properly  or- 
ganized, there  is  at  once  a  demand  for  an  army  of  teachers.  There 
must  be  not  only  a  much  larger  supjoly  of  teachers,  but  the  worth- 
less ones  must  be  weeded  out  by  strict  examinations. 

One  of  the  chief  dangers  is  that  of  emjDloying  cheap  teachers. 
Landor  represented  Hanley  as  saying  "the  readiest  made  shoes 
are  boots  cut  down."  So  men  think  the  readiest  made  teachers 
are  cut-down  men  of  other  emplo^'inents.  We  have  hundreds  of 
such  teachers,  not  one  of  whom  has  the  slightest  doubt  of  his  fit- 
ness for  the  office. 

In  the  great  demand  for  them,  caused  by  the  multiplication  of 
schools,  many  unsuitable  persons  will  be  likeh^  to  be  employed  for 
want  of  better.  Students,  sometimes,  who  have  no  aptitude  nor 
love  for  the  occupation,  wlU  submit  temporarily  to  the  unwelcome 
task  for  the  sake  of  rei^lenishing  their  purses.  Persons  out  of  em- 
jDloyment  will  offer  to  teach  till  they  can  find  something  better  to 
do.  The  young  and  inexperienced  wiU  always  stand  ready  for  the 
service,  which  wiU  prove  a  dead  loss  to  the  pupils.  As  none  of 
these  classes  of  teachers  will  give  satisfaction,  a  new  teacher  will 
be  sought  every  session,  so  that  nothing  but  change  and  confusion 
win  be  perpetual.  The  school  boards,  seeing  the  worthlessness  of 
teachers,  will  lower  their  wages.  The  more  promising  teachers 
will  retire  from  the  field,  which  will  be  held  by  the  incompetent. 
No  ambitious  youth  will  think  of  preparing  himself  for  an  office  so 
httle  respected  and  so  little  remunerative.  The  schools  will  sink 
in  character  and  reputation  just  in  proportion  as  the  teachers  sink. 
Good  families  wiU  withdraw  their  children  and  place  them  in  pri- 
vate schools,  and  wiU  be  opposed  to  voting  money  when  so  httle 
good  is  accomphshed.  And  with  the  great  majority  of  children 
the  golden  period  for  education  will  be  idly  passed  away,  never  to 
be  recalled. 

The  great  fault  with  untrained  teachers  is  that  they  do  little  but 
teach  the  words  and  formulas  of  books.  A  Normal  graduate 
teaches  things,  piinciples,  thoughts.  Every  point  is  examined 
orally;  and  subjects  are  sifted  by  the  exercise  of  the  judgment  as 
well  as  the  memory.     The  pupil  is  made  to  see  with  his  own  eyes 


and  to  rely  on  his  own  observations.  Books  are  a  mere  syllabus, 
a  skeleton,  to  be  clothed  with  flesh  by  the  teacher  and  pupil. 

Practical  knowledge  of  almost  every  kind  is  worked  in  continu- 
ally with  the  subjects  of  study.  All  the  common  objects  of  sight, 
such  as  flowers,  plants,  trees,  rocks,  birds,  insects,  tame  and  wild 
animals;  forms,  colors  and  dimensions;  manners,  morals,  laws  of 
health;  gymnastic  exercises,  drawing,  and  the  cultivation  of  the 
voice,  receive  special  attention.  This  common  sense  knowledge  of 
useful  things  is  a  vital  part  of  poj)ular  education.  Instead  of  this, 
how  often  are  the  poor  children  wearied  with  the  endless  repeti- 
tion of  mere  words,  the  dry  and  stale  lumber  of  the  books. 

The  only  way  to  prevent  such  disastrous  results  and  to  make  the 
schools  the  pride  of  the  people,  is  for  the  State  to  make  provision 
for  thoroughly  training  a  large  body  of  teachers.  When  schools 
are  established  in  every  district,  and  a  law  is  passed  that  none  but 
competent  teachers  sball  be  employed,  a  profession  is  established 
and  persons  can  afford  to  prepare  themselves  for  it.  It  will  thus 
become  a  permanent  and  attractive  occupation  when  the  schools 
become  annual,  and  when  graded  schools  open  the  way  for  promo- 
tion from  the  lower  to  the  higher  grades. 

To  make  a  suitable  provision  among  teachers  certain,  it  is  necssa- 
ry  to  establish  Normal  Schools,  which  is  the  j^roper  function  of  the 
State.  This  will  give  dignity  to  the  profession,  and  produce  a  ra- 
dical change  hi  the  schools.  Can  an}i;hing  be  more  desu-able  than 
these  two  objects '?  Is  there  any  greater  reproach  resting  u^Don  our 
system  of  education  than  the  low  character  of  many  of  the  schools, 
and  the  utter  incompetency  of  many  of  the  teachers? 

I  know  it  is  said  by  those  who  do  not  beheve  in  progress  that  a 
teacher  is  born,  not  made,  which  in  its  true  sense  only  means  that 
he  should  have  a  natural  aptitude  for  his  calling,  just  as  if  this  prin- 
ciple were  not  aj)plicable  to  a  lawyer,  i^hysician  or  even  of  an  artisan 
of  any  kind.  In  addition  to  this  aptitude,  which  only  indicates 
what  or.e's  occupation  should  be  without  fitting  him  for  it,  every 
man  should  be  bred  to  his  jorofession.  To  be  a  great  scholar,  even 
a  genius  must  be  a  diligent  student.  To  be  a  great  General  one 
must  be  not  only  born  to  command,  but  educated  to  command. 

There  is  nothing  peculiar  in  the  case  of  the  school  teacher.  His 
profession  is  like  other  professions,  and  requires  sjiecial  iDreparation 
as  all  others  do  and  precisely  for  the  same  reason. 

The  objection  has  been  made  to  Normal  Schools,  that  knowledge 
is  what  the  teacher  needs,  and  that  our  Hterary  institutions  furnish 
it  best.  This  is  only  half  of  what  the  teacher  needs,  and  much  the 
easier  half.  You  will  find  twenty  who  have  this  qualification  where 
you  find  one  who  knows  how  to  teach  and  govern.  This  assertion 
is  made  not  from  a  theoretical  point  of  view,  but  fifom  a  large  ex- 
perience and  observation.  I  was  for  soine  years  connected  with 
the  pubhc  schools  of  Massachusetts.  School  boards  who  had  for- 
merly employed  coUege  graduates,  but  more  recently  graduates  of 
the  State   Normal   Schools,  could  not  be  induced  to  appoint  as 


10 


teacher  a  young  man  just  from  college  witliout  a  normal  training. 
This  is  the  more  remarkable  as  the  members  of  the  boards  were 
themselves  generally  college  graduates.  It  was  found  by  trial  that 
a  knowledge  of  what  is  commonly  taught  in  learned  schools  is  not 
all  that  a  teacher  needs.  He  must  know  how  to  enter  into  the 
hidden  recesses  of  the  youthful  mind,  and  from  that  point  work 
outward  and  upward.  The  pupil  is  like  a  treasure  in  the  sea,  and 
the  teacher  like  a  diver  who  goes  to  the  bottom  to  bring  it  up.  If 
you  do  not  descend  and  ascertain  first  exactly  where  the  child's 
mind  is  you  wiU  not  bring  him  up  where  you  are.  The  descent  of 
the  teacher  is  essential  to  the  ascent  of  the  pupil. 

The  beginnings  of  knowledge  are  obscure  and  mysterious.     This' 
is  especially  true  of  written  language,  the  first  thing  with  which  the  i 
primary  teacher  has  to  deal.     The  sound  of  long  o,  for  example,  ' 
has  seven  different  representations,  and  each  of  these  has  a  differ-] 
ent  sovmd  in  other  words.     How  does  the  ordinary  teacher  go  to  | 
work  ?     He  makes  the  child  commit  to  memory  the  names,  not  the  ■. 
powers,  of  these  letters.     What  would  you  think  of  the  teacher  of ; 
chemistry  who,  instead  of  showing  what  oxygen,  hydrogen  and) 
nitrogen  are,  should  merely  give  out  the  names  to  be  committed 
to  memory.     There  is  but  one  thing  more  absurd,  and  that  is,  what  i 
an  educated  man  once  did  who  could  teach  Latin,  Greek  and  ma- 
thematics.    He  called  up  a  child,  and  pointing  to  the  middle  of  the 
alphabet,  said:  "  Go  to  your  seat  and  get  that  lesson." 

He  ivho  can  begin  with  a  child  and  skillfully  carry  him  through  the 
first  Jif teen  years  of  fas  life,  does  the  greatest  thing  that  is  ever  done  for 
him. 

It  is  said  by  those  ivho  knoiv  no  better,  that  a  Normal  School  is  no- 
thing after  all  but  a  State  High  School.     They  might  just  as  well  say 
that  the  science  of  medicine  is  nothing  but  physiology,  civil  engi- 
neering nothing  but  mathematics,  and  mining  nothing  but  mine-"^ 
ralogy,  all  of  which  are  taught  in  our  colleges.     All  professions  are 
based  upon  general  science  and  literature,  but  are  built  up  on  a ; 
structure  of  their  own.     There  is  a  science  of  teaching  and  an  art  i 
of  teaching,     A  complete,  theoretical  and  practical  course,  iUustra-  ; 
ted  in  aU  the  branches  to  be  taught,  with  their  environments,  is ; 
found  nowhere  out  of  the  Normal  School.     To  make  this  evident, 
one  needs  only  to  learn  what  a  Normal  School  actually  is. 

Besides  reviewing  elementary  studies  to  see  that  there  are  no 
chasms,  no  weak  points,  and  piu'suing  advanced  studies  to  shed 
their  light  on  the  former,  both  courses  are  peculiar  in  this,  that 
every  step  is  taken  with  reference  to  the  art  of  teaching.  Then 
there  is  the  difficult  but  indispensable  study  of  the  juvenile  mind: 
its  intuitions  and  instincts;  its  dominant  faculties  and  the  order  of 
their  development;  its  dehcate  organism,  weaknesses  and  perils; 
its  active,  but  one-sided  curiosity;  its  tastes  and  aversions;  the 
causes  of  its  lethargy  or  apparent  dullness;  the  kind  and  degree 
of  stimulus  it  needs;  its  social  or  unsocial  tendencies;  the  play  of 
its  various  passions;  its  biases  to  good  or  evil;  its  condition,  as 


